We’re pleased to introduce our fully online course: Manual Handling in Industry – For Managers.
Manual handling injuries remain common in industrial workplaces, even in organisations that already run training programmes. Workers lift incorrectly, supervisors notice and nothing changes. Safe technique taught in a session does not hold up in daily work when no one reinforces it. The problem is rarely a shortage of training. It is a shortage of managers equipped to act on what they observe.
This IIRSM-approved course gives managers and supervisors the practical skills to identify unsafe technique, respond to errors constructively and investigate why the same handling problems keep recurring. It covers how to observe and correct technique using the eight principles of safe manual handling, how to apply a structured four-step feedback method and how to investigate and remove the root causes of persistent unsafe behaviour. The course is fully online and self-paced, with no classroom sessions required.
Musculoskeletal disorders account for more than a quarter of work-related ill health in Great Britain. In warehousing, manufacturing, logistics and distribution, workers routinely bend at the waist, twist with feet planted and carry loads at arm’s length. These postures occur across every shift, and where managers cannot identify them, they go uncorrected.
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 require employers to avoid hazardous manual handling where reasonably practicable and, where avoidance is not possible, to assess and reduce the risk.
When a handling injury leads to a claim, a reportable incident or an inspection, duty holders must show that risks were actively managed and not simply addressed through worker training. The financial consequences are significant. Handling injuries drive absenteeism, reduced productivity and staff turnover.
In practice, the same failure points recur across workplaces. Workers revert to unsafe postures under time pressure. Feedback is vague, delayed or aimed at the person rather than the specific behaviour. Persistent problems go uninvestigated while the same feedback is given repeatedly, and the underlying structural cause goes unidentified and unaddressed.
This course gives managers the tools to break that pattern. It equips them to:
- Recognise the specific postures and load positions that cause back and musculoskeletal injuries
- Identify technique errors in real time using the eight principles of safe manual handling
- Apply a four-step feedback method designed to correct technique errors constructively and without confrontation
- Investigate persistent unsafe behaviour by following the chain of causes back to the root problem
- Remove the workplace obstacles that prevent safe handling from being adopted in everyday work
This course is for managers and supervisors responsible for manual handling in industrial workplaces. It is relevant wherever lifting, carrying, pushing or pulling loads is part of normal daily work, including warehousing, manufacturing, logistics and distribution.
It is suitable for:
- Operations managers
- Warehouse managers
- Production managers
- Shift supervisors
- Team leaders
- Logistics managers
- Health and safety managers
By completing this course, managers will:
- Understand how stressful postures, load distance, bending and twisting increase the risk of back and musculoskeletal injury
- Learn how to identify the eight principles of safe manual handling and recognise when each principle is being violated
- See how slips, trips, hand injuries and musculoskeletal disorders arise from routine handling tasks
- Understand why training alone rarely sustains safe handling behaviour and what role active management plays
- Learn to apply a four-step feedback method to correct handling errors constructively and without confrontation
- See how to investigate persistent unsafe behaviour by identifying the underlying cause rather than repeating the same feedback
- Learn how to identify and remove the workplace obstacles that prevent safe techniques from being used in practice
Need your managers to do more than observe unsafe technique and move on? Enrol your team on Manual Handling in Industry – For Managers training today. Give every supervisor a structured method for identifying handling errors, delivering constructive feedback and tracing persistent problems back to their root cause.
Give your managers a consistent approach to identifying and correcting unsafe technique across teams and shifts, and support your organisation’s compliance with the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
Enrol Now
For more details about this course, please contact us.
